Zuora Accelerates Usage Monetization with New Capabilities to Rapidly Transform Raw Usage Data Into Innovative Pricing Models

“With Zuora, we were live with usage metering in less than a month and able to provide instant visibility to usage data for our end customers. That’s allowed us to take new pricing from ideation to reality much faster than if our engineering team built a homegrown solution.”

SaaS is increasingly turning to usage-based models: Research from Zuora’s Subscribed Institute and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) concluded that nearly half of all companies studied implemented some form of usage-based pricing in the last three years, with many seeing higher growth and retention. The proliferation of GenAI is also leading more companies to explore usage and better correlate pricing with value. For AI and GenAI services, a Subscribed Institute study found that more than half (53%) of all consumers surveyed say it is important to have a usage-based pricing model available.

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Effective usage monetization requires rapid experimentation to evolve pricing, which relies on critical usage data to understand how customers consume and engage with products. But without the right technology, translating usage into new pricing can be challenging, complex and time intensive for engineering teams. Additionally, customers expect full visibility into their usage to comprehend future charges and invoices. Without this transparency, poor customer experiences can lead to billing disputes and even churn.

Zuora’s Metering and Rating solution enables companies to immediately convert raw usage events across services and devices into usage meters, then apply them to pricing experimentation and accurate billing. A homegrown usage metering and rating tool can take multiple engineers to deploy and maintain. Now, engineers can focus on product innovation while leveraging Zuora to solve for usage pricing. Companies like Digibee and Yellow.ai use Zuora to quickly adapt usage-based pricing models based on changing market demands.

“When you look at the market demand for personalized pricing tied to value or usage, such as GenAI offerings, it’s no surprise that usage-based pricing is one of our fastest-growing solutions at Zuora,” said Shakir Karim, Senior Vice President, Product Management at Zuora. “Rolling out a new product used to start with a grand plan and a lot of guesswork that you perfected over long periods of time. With Zuora, companies can quickly bring in usage data to experiment and ideate on new pricing models. This data-driven approach helps ensure you are pricing products based on what end customers actually use and value.”

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With the recent acquisition of Togai, Zuora’s enhanced solution for usage-based pricing now includes:

• Advanced usage metering and rating capabilities that allow companies to quickly experiment with different usage-based pricing models through a configurable user interface
• An out-of-the-box customer portal to provide customers near real-time visibility into their usage
• Drag-and-drop widgets to monitor usage trends on customer-facing dashboards
• APIs to embed and showcase usage visibility in existing applications.

Zuora’s solution allows companies to rapidly add usage-pricing into their monetization mix without the need to replace their billing system. This approach helps greatly accelerate the speed to adopt usage-based pricing.

“Giving our customers immediate and accurate visibility into usage-based pricing is absolutely critical for an AI-powered integration platform like ours,” said Rafael Nobrega, Product Manager at Digibee. “With Zuora, we were live with usage metering in less than a month and able to provide instant visibility to usage data for our end customers. That’s allowed us to take new pricing from ideation to reality much faster than if our engineering team built a homegrown solution.”